Paintings of Terror

Chapter 209: Big Boss Ke Xun

“The Classic of Rites says ‘Pheasants enter the flood as a mirage’, and In Search of the Supernatural mentions this phrase ‘The thousand-year-old pheasant enters the sea as a mirage.” Mu Yiran picked up the long feather. “The pheasant lived for a thousand years and was able to enter the sea and turn into a mirage. We’ve all heard of the term mirage. However, the ancients had a different interpretation of the term mirage.”

“Classic of Mountain and Sea interpreted a mirage as a clam-like sea monster, but The Materia Medica interpreted it as a dragon. It was said to look like a serpent with dragon-like horns and a red mane. The scales underneath its waist were inverted, and when it ate, it would swallow its food whole. It can blow entire city walls apart with its breath, and it would often appear during rainstorms. It was called a sea monster, and also known as a mirage.”

“The ancients believed that the sea monster was the result of a mirage, and the place where it appeared in the misty clouds was considered the place where the gods lived. This resulted in a historical event where Emperor Qin Shihuang sent people out to sea to search for the medicine of the gods.”

“So from this perspective, everything we have experienced so far made sense. This ship was sent out by Emperor Qin Shihuang to search for the Island of Immortals. During the sea voyage, we encountered the optical phenomenon of a mirage. However, in the ancients–or in the painter’s cognition, the mirage is a sea monster, and the world in the painting is created according to the painter’s will and cognition, so what we encountered wouldn’t be an ordinary optical phenomenon, but illusions transformed by the mirage.”

“The illusion we experience every night should be the so-called mirage. The thousand-year-old pheasant enters the sea as a mirage. In the sea, it is a mirage, but on land or on deck, the image it presents is a pheasant.”

“In the story of Burning Rhinoceros At Bull Islet, the sea demons are invisible to the naked eye. Although they can be seen after burning the rhino horn, the demons would also come out to try to destroy the burning rhino.”

“Burning rhinoceros is an act of sabotaging the barrier between yin and yang, and so it must be punished by the demons, just like what happened to Wen Qiao in the story. So every night, when we burn a rhino horn, at least one person will die.”

“If the rhino horn is not burnts, maybe someone will die from the illusion created by the mirage, or maybe no will die that night. However, we wouldn’t be able to escape the fate of voting someone to death the next day, and we also might not be able to find the signature.”

“So, for the moment, we still need to light a rhino horn tonight to look for the signature. However, I think this situation may not be entirely mortal. Judging from Fang Fei’s ability to shoot the pheasant’s tail feathers, my guess is that the pheasant can be killed…”

“I’m going to burn the rhino horn tonight,” Ke Xun suddenly said. He looked at Mu Yiran calmly and added, “I’ll kill it.”

“Don’t be impulsive!” Wei Dong said anxiously. “Regardless of whether the pheasant can be killed or not, none of the people who lit the rhino horns survived. Who can guarantee that you can kill the pheasant, that you wouldn’t die anyway? As long as you light the rhino horn, you will die. Big brother, please persuade him!”

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Mu Yiran looked at Ke Xun. He raised his hand to stroke Ke Xun’s head and said, “I’ll be with you tonight.”

Wei Dong exclaimed, “…Is love making people blind?!”

“For the sake of insurance, we can still use mobile phones to ignite the rhino horn,” Mu Yiran said. “You should also be mentally prepared in advance, because we’re not sure what the consequences may be after shooting the pheasant. My suggestion is for everyone to stay together on the deck. The illusion can tear the barrier of space and distance, and so there’s no difference between staying in the cabins and staying on deck. It doesn’t make us any safer. However, Ke Xun and I will stay in the upper deck and shoot and kill the pheasant. If we can find the signature on time, with everyone on deck, we can leave the painting in time.”

After hearing this, everyone nodded.

“Is it really a good thing to try to kill it?” Luo Ling looked at the boundless sea. “What if it becomes a giant clam and can’t be killed with an arrow?”

“Regarding the question of the mirage’s body,” Mu Yiran said, “I’m more inclined to say that it is a dragon. Even in Journey to the West, we are familiar with what the Monkey King, Sun Wukong, had said to the monk, Tang Seng. He said, ‘The journey west will have a lot of monsters and demons. Even turning into pavilions and buildings to deceive people. Among the nine kinds of dragons, there is a famous mirage. When the mirage rises, it’s like a building rippling like water. Here, a mirage is also a dragon.”

“We have said before that Emperor Qin Shihuang once shot a giant sea creature, thus starting Xu Fu’s journey to the east. Shao Ling also mentioned that in Historical Records: The First Emperor of Qin, Emperor Qin Shihuang dreamed of the Sea God, and the interpretation of the dream was this: kill the evil dragon, and you will see the true god.”

“Therefore, the mirage in this painting is most likely in the form of a dragon, and it is imperative that we shoot it to find a breakthrough.”

After these words, no one had any more objections. There was nothing to do for a while, so they all found a place to rest and sleep.

Mu Yiran went to the kitchen to boil some hot water for Ke Xun. Then he found a separate room and told him to lie down on the couch. He sat next to him, patting his back until he sank into slumber.

Ke Xun slept until mid-afternoon. When he opened his eyes, Mu Yiran was gone. He went to the central hall and found everyone gathered there. Wei Dong said, “There’s food for you in the kitchen. Go eat first. Anyway, there’s nothing much important to do here.”

“Who cooked?” Ke Xun asked, his voice still hoarse.

“Everyone.” Wei Dong’s expression became complicated. A group of big masters who didn’t know how to cook got together, and one added a handful of firewood, and one threw in some vegetables. It was a messy, flustered way of cooking, but it smelled somewhat…

Ke Xun went to the kitchen and saw that there was still some half-warm porridge left in the pot, which was a rotten mixture of lumps of meat and vegetables, looking very unappetizing.

But Ke Xun didn’t nitpick. He ate until his stomach was filled and then he returned to the central hall.

There was really nothing for everyone to do. Qin Ci and Zhu Haowen were looking at the bamboo slips in the captain’s room. Wei Dong and Luo Bu sat in a daze, while Mu Yiran and Shao Ling were discussing the possibilities where the signature might be.

Ke Xun took the bow and arrow and returned to the deck, ready to practice some more. Mu Yiran also grabbed a bow and arrow and followed him to the deck.

They practiced until it got dark, and then they arranged the mechanism to light the rhino horn with a mobile phone. Afterward, they both went to the front deck, so as to prevent accidentally injuring their teammates when they shot arrows into the dark. There, they stood at the ship’s head, while everyone stayed at the back.

Now, there was nothing to do but wait.

As night fell, the fog in the sea became thicker and thicker. With the last glimmer of light, Mu Yiran turned his head to look at Ke Xun.

Ke Xun’s expression was extremely calm. From his face, there were no signs of any emotional fluctuations whatsoever, be it happiness, anger, sadness, or nervousness.

“Ke Xun,” Mu Yiran whispered, “I hope you’ll still remember that we’re going to leave the painting together.”

Ke Xun turned to face him then, and the last faint light in the sky vanished altogether as they looked into each other’s eyes. In the darkness, Mu Yiran heard Ke Xun’s voice, spoken with a slight smile, “Of course, I remember. I will never again make my favorite person lonely and sad.”

They did not hold each other’s hands, but turned back to back, arrows nocked at the ready.

Since they were going to leave the painting together, they must try their best tonight to get through the door.

It was unknown how much time had passed. But the preset mechanism was activated, and the mobile phone’s battery was detonated, igniting the rhino horn.

Ke Xun calmly raised the bow and arrow in his hand.

Although the light of the rhino horn was bright, the range it could reach was limited. Ke Xun stood beside the rhino horn, looking around vigilantly, waiting for the appearance of the pheasant.

The waves rushed in the darkness, the sound seeming dull and stagnant under the cover of dense fog. However, if you listened carefully, under the dull and thick sound of the waves, there seemed to be many small, strange noises.

These sounds were densely packed, crowded, squeaky and noisy. They sounded like they were scraping bones with a dull file, making people’s scalp tingle.

These unbearably unpleasant sounds seemed to accumulate in the depths of the sea, but it seemed to be slowly surging from the depths and floating towards the ship.

They got closer and closer, noisier and finer, until suddenly, they broke through the barrier of the sea. All the noises burst out in an instant, exploding upon the surface of the sea. The harsh sounds penetrated Ke Xun and Mu Yiran’s eardrums and pierce directly into their brains.

Ke Xun gritted his teeth. However, he did not cover his ears to block that nerve-wrenching sound, but steadily held the bow in his hand, motionless in place.

These noises resounded across the vast ocean surface, seemingly refracted by the water waves and becoming infinitely amplified.

There seemed to be no end to the noise, and it seemed to continuously pierce their ear drums and brain nerves. This went on for an unknown amount of time. If it was someone else, that person might have collapsed long ago. However, Ke Xun simply held onto the bow and arrow, motionless.

Suddenly, the sound came to an abrupt end, and there was an empty silence. After such a long period of noises, the silence was unusually abrupt, making one’s chest felt heavy.

The thick sea waves continued to crash and rolled slowly, adding to the sense of suffocation and making it more difficult to breathe.

This painful and difficult feeling went on for a long period of time, and just when it felt as if their breastbone were about to be crushed by the oppression, they suddenly heard a familiar “creak.”

Ke Xun stared at the direction where the sound came from, into a darkness deeper than the night.

Creak, creak, creak.

The sound was not hurried, as if coming from a power with the superiority of resting at the top of the chain of life and death. There, it sneered with the scornful ridicule of something that could manipulate life at will. It walked casually toward the side with the burning rhino horn.

Creak, little by little, it came closer and closer.

At the edge of the illumination casted by the burning light of the rhino horn, a sharp bird’s claw silently protruded from the darkness, falling into the ambiguity of light and shadow.

Ke Xun held his breath and stared at it without blinking.

This claw fell on the intersection of darkness and light, and it didn’t move for a long time. It seemed to be waiting for the nerves of the person who feared it to collapse first, and it also seemed to be waiting for them to relax after a long period of high tension.

Finally, it seemed to think that the time had come, and slowly, poked its head out of the dense and dead darkness.

A colorful bird head appeared in the flickering light of the rhino horn. It tilted its head slightly. revealing a long narrow eye and a strange smile.

Were you laughing at the fragility of humans, or were you proud of your own masterpiece?

In the light of the rhino horn, a sneer sounded, and with this sneer, an arrow flew out of the light and instantly penetrated the bird’s head, the shot both ruthless and deadly accurate.

A bitter scream exploded in the interlacing of light and darkness, fog and shadow. Ke Xun walked out of the light with his bow in hand. The sneer was still fading from his lips, and his eyes fell coldly in the direction where the bird fell.

He said, word by word, “I said, I would kill you.”